German police raid homes in antiterror operation

BERLIN – German police commandos and investigators staged raids across five states on Tuesday morning, targeting about a dozen Russian citizens suspected of supporting terrorism, police said.

The authorities raided 12 apartments in Hamburg, Thuringia, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony and Bavaria, according to state criminal investigators in Thuringia.

An investigation launched by a state prosecutor in the east German state targeted in 2015 a 28-year-old Russian citizen of Chechen background, who wanted to join Islamic State as a fighter in Syria’s civil war, police said.

A further 10 men and three women, also Russian citizens with Chechen roots, emerged as suspects during the investigation, the police said. The group is suspected of financing terrorism, but there were no concrete plans for an attack, according to police.